


Poorly

by AutisticWriter



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [12]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: ADHD Fourth Doctor, Anxiety, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Doctor, Autistic Fourth Doctor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Influenza, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Fourth Doctor, One Shot, Panic Attacks, Parent AU, Parenthood, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sensory Overload, Sickfic, Stimming, Tumblr Prompt, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 12:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11081238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticWriter/pseuds/AutisticWriter
Summary: Imagine the child of your OTP+ caught the bug that was going around. How does each of them take care of the child?





	Poorly

**Harry**

His daughter is ill.

Susan has influenza, and has been ill for four days now. She doesn’t have the worst case Harry has seen, but is ill enough that her temperature keeps spiking to dangerous levels. She is feeling far too ill to get much sleep, so the last four nights have consisted of Susan sitting up in the middle of their big double bed, whilst he, Sarah and the Doctor try their best to keep her comfortable and stay awake. Several times, poor Susan has broken down sobbing about how poorly she feels, and it breaks Harry’s heart to see her looking so sad.

It may be irrational, but Harry can’t stop worrying about her. He knows that influenza isn’t normally serious, but it can have life threatening complications. Living in the TARDIS doesn’t help, because the databank has far more information about potential complications than he ever wanted to know. He doesn’t say any of this in front of Susan, but he voices his fears to Sarah and the Doctor. They try to reassure him that Susan just has the flu and will get better soon, but he still worries. And he knows he’ll keep worrying until Susan gets better.

\---

**Sarah Jane**

What with Harry spending most of his time worrying about Susan and the Doctor being far more forgetful than usual (stress and lack of sleep don’t do his memory or attention span much good), it is mainly up to Sarah to look after their daughter.

Too weak to walk, Susan is basically confined to Sarah, Harry and the Doctor’s bed. She spends her time propped up awkwardly, surrounded by tissues and sick bowls and cold flannels, and watching random Earth cartoons on the wall screen.

When he isn’t studying horrible complications of the flu, Harry pops into the bedroom every half an hour or so to take Susan’s temperature and other vital signs. Susan must notice how worried Harry looks, because she tightly clasps her Dad’s hand whenever he comes near her, and gives him a weak smile. Harry smiles back, but it always looks like there might be tears in his eyes.

The Doctor doesn’t do much nursing, but he spends a lot of time with Susan. He often sits next to her in bed and reads her books or shows her his favourite films on the wall screen or tells her wild stories about his travels through space and time (some of which Sarah remember vividly). But when Susan is sick or starts coughing violently, the Doctor will yell for Sarah, panic audible in his voice.

On one such occasion, she rushes into the room to find Susan coughing up phlegm into a bunched up tissue, her face red and screwed up. The Doctor is stood beside her, his hands clamped over his ears whilst his fingers dig into his thick curly hair, his face tense, bouncing up and down as he talks to Susan.

“It’s all right, Susan, Mum’s coming, it’s all right,” he says flatly, over and over again.

Despite the Doctor’s panic, the situation is easy to dissolve. Sarah sits down beside Susan and rubs her daughter’s back as she coughs, whispering reassuring nothings as her daughter slumps against her, weak and burning with fever. She can hear the phlegm in Susan’s coughs, and wonders if she is getting a chest infection too. She hopes not, if for no other reason that it will make Harry worry even more.

Once Susan’s coughing fit is over, Sarah takes the Doctor’s arm and sits him down. She knows sensory overload combined with fear can potentially lead to a rather nasty meltdown, so she takes a few minutes to reassure the Doctor. She also knows that the Doctor feels helpless, because he doesn’t know what to do to make Susan feel better (well, he does know, but he always forgets it when he starts to panic). And the unknown always makes him panic, leading to the situation they are currently experiencing several times a day.

“I’m sorry,” he says, wrapping his scarf around his hands.

“Don’t be sorry,” she says, and Susan gives the Doctor a hug.

\---

**The Doctor**

“Have I forgotten to do anything?”

“No, Par.”

“Have you had your tablets?”

“Yes, Par.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I still feel poorly.”

“But you don’t feel any worse?”

“Nope,” Susan says, smiling. “I think I’m starting to feel better.”

The Doctor grins, knowing she is telling the truth. He knows he keeps fussing, but he can’t help but worry about Susan. She has never been ill before, and he’s still not quite sure what to do. He can’t trust Harry, who keeps going on about the worst case scenarios and worrying them both, and Sarah has gone out. So it’s up to him. Luckily, Susan seems to be on the mend.

“That’s good,” he says. “Now where’s that book?”

“What book?”

“I picked out one of my favourite books,” the Doctor says, spinning around as he scans the room, trying to locate the missing book. “I was going to read it to you. But I’ve lost it.”

He always seems to lose things. He just puts them down, gets distracted and forgets all about them. By the time he has remembered his original task, he’s completely forgotten where he put the thing in the first place. He sighs and searches his pockets, wondering if he put it in one of his pockets.

“Is that it?” Susan asks, pointing towards the door.

The Doctor turns to look and, indeed, the book is lying on the floor in the doorway.

“Yes, it is,” he says, and he pulls a very exaggerated confused expression. “But how did it get there?”

Susan giggles, wiping her nose with one of her many tissues. “It’s a mystery.”

“It is indeed,” the Doctor says, grinning. “A mystery called ‘Par dropped it but can’t remember actually dropping it’.”

He picks up his book (a very old copy of _The Tales of Peter the Rabbit_ ), and is relieved to find that it isn’t damaged. As Susan giggles again, the Doctor sits cross legged on the bed, and opens the book. The smell of old book hits him, and he inhales deeply, loving the smell. Then he looks at Susan, feeling a slight worried twinge in his chest. He hopes nothing will happen, because he hates the overwhelming fear and helplessness that he gets when his poor daughter is suffering like that. He can’t read facial expressions very well, so he doesn’t know what Susan is thinking – but he wonders if she is having similar thoughts.

But he tries to put it out of his mind, and he and Susan are soon lost in the world of Beatrix Potter.

\---

**Harry**

At half past two, Harry heads into the bedroom for Susan’s latest check up. To his amusement, he finds Susan and the Doctor cuddled up together, fast asleep. Susan is using the Doctor’s chest as a pillow, and has part of the Doctor’s scarf gripped in her hand. The Doctor’s copy of _The Tales of Peter Rabbit_ is still open in his hand. They look so peaceful like that, and he considers leaving them to their nap... but then his worry gets the better of him, and he shakes Susan’s shoulder.

“Susan, sweetheart?” he whispers. “It’s time to take your temperature.”

And, when Susan’s temperature comes back within safe parameters, Harry wants to kick himself. Because he knew that it would have done, but there was just that doubt in the back of his mind... and he had to give into it, because he knows he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened to Susan. It’s annoying and downright pathetic, but Harry can’t help it. He just cares about her so much, and he is so scared of losing her.

\---

**Sarah Jane**

Sarah gets home later than she expected. She has been under a lot of stress the last few days, to the point that going out to do the food shopping as actually a bit of a relief. But the supermarket was hideously busy for some reason, dragging her trip out by over an hour. She just hopes everything has been all right at home.

When she enters the house, Sarah finds it unusually quiet. Confused, she goes up the stairs, passes the TARDIS in the spare bedroom, and enters her room. What she finds makes her want to laugh and cry at the same time in sheer delight.

Susan, Harry and the Doctor are all fast asleep, cuddled up together on the bed. They look so sweet that she doesn’t want to wake them. So, as quietly as she can, Sarah gets into the bed beside Harry, and finally drifts into a deep, restful sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> In 'The Creature From the Pit' the Doctor reads The Tales of Peter Rabbit, so I thought it might be a favourite of his.


End file.
